Download PDF
N-iX > Case Studies > Cost and Operational Optimization for a Global IoT Service Provider
N-iX Logo

Cost and Operational Optimization for a Global IoT Service Provider

Technology Category
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
  • Cement
  • Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions
  • Product Research & Development
Use Cases
  • Behavior & Emotion Tracking
  • Leakage & Flood Monitoring
Services
  • Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
The Challenge

The client, a global enterprise and one of the world's largest companies delivering IoT devices and services, faced a significant challenge. They needed to modernize and expand the functionality of their legacy IoT device and asset-tracking SaaS platform. The existing system was an on-premise architecture that was inefficient and incurred significant costs. The client aimed to improve the platform's efficiency and user experience, optimize costs, and accelerate time-to-market. The platform, a hub for IoT devices supporting industrial protocols, manages connected devices and transmits their data to third-party services like SAP and Salesforce. The need for modernization and migration to the cloud was crucial to meet the client's objectives.

About The Customer

The client is a global enterprise and one of the world's largest companies that delivers IoT devices and services. Starting as a small telecom R&D service provider over 20 years ago, the company has grown into a global enterprise with nearly 1,000 employees and about 20% of the market share in its niche. The client provides IoT device-tracking and asset-tracking solutions to enterprises with the help of their SaaS platform. The platform supports industrial protocols and manages connected devices, transmitting their data to third-party services such as SAP and Salesforce.

The Solution

N-iX, a software development company, provided a comprehensive solution to the client's challenges. They moved the on-premise infrastructure of the client's SaaS platform to the cloud. To add flexibility and avoid vendor lock-in, the new infrastructure was made to be cloud-agnostic, meaning it could seamlessly work with any cloud environment. This was achieved by redeveloping and replicating the platform's architecture in Kubernetes for AWS, Azure, and Minikube. N-iX also built CI/CD pipelines for GitLab from scratch to streamline and automate the development and deployment process. Automated testing was implemented based on the rules created by the client's tech team, expanding the automation delivered by CI/CD pipelines even further. Additionally, N-iX completed several third-party integrations, such as Elasticsearch, Graphite, Grafana, Graylog, and Prometheus, to increase the platform's monitoring and analytical capabilities.

Operational Impact

  • The migration of the on-premise infrastructure to the cloud, the building of efficient CI/CD pipelines, and the implementation of various third-party integrations resulted in significant operational improvements. The platform became more flexible and cost-effective, with its infrastructure redesigned using the latest cloud development practices and technologies. The platform's monitoring capabilities were expanded, improving the client's product offering. The client also avoided vendor lock-in by making the platform cloud-agnostic. The automation of the development and deployment process was streamlined, improving platform efficiency. The client was also able to better manage expenses by monitoring and adjusting the use of cloud resources.

Quantitative Benefit

  • Optimized costs by migrating the platform to the cloud and limiting the amount of required expensive on-premise resources.

  • Added more flexibility and avoided vendor lock-in by making the platform cloud-agnostic.

  • Improved platform efficiency by streamlining platform deployment and development with CI/CD pipelines built from scratch.

Related Case Studies.

Case Study
IoT System for Tunnel Construction
The Zenitaka Corporation ('Zenitaka') has two major business areas: its architectural business focuses on structures such as government buildings, office buildings, and commercial facilities, while its civil engineering business is targeted at structures such as tunnels, bridges and dams. Within these areas, there presented two issues that have always persisted in regard to the construction of mountain tunnels. These issues are 'improving safety" and "reducing energy consumption". Mountain tunnels construction requires a massive amount of electricity. This is because there are many kinds of electrical equipment being used day and night, including construction machinery, construction lighting, and ventilating fan. Despite this, the amount of power consumption is generally not tightly managed. In many cases, the exact amount of power consumption is only ascertained when the bill from the power company becomes available. Sometimes, corporations install demand-monitoring equipment to help curb the maximum power demanded. However, even in these cases, the devices only allow the total volume of power consumption to be ascertained, or they may issue warnings to prevent the contracted volume of power from being exceeded. In order to tackle the issue of reducing power consumption, it was first necessary to obtain an accurate breakdown of how much power was being used in each particular area. In other words, we needed to be able to visualize the amount of power being consumed. Safety, was also not being managed very rigorously. Even now, tunnel construction sites often use a 'name label' system for managing entry into the work site. Specifically, red labels with white reverse sides that bear the workers' names on both sides are displayed at the tunnel work site entrance. The workers themselves then flip the name label to the appropriate side when entering or exiting from the work site to indicate whether or not they are working inside the tunnel at any given time. If a worker forgets to flip his or her name label when entering or exiting from the tunnel, management cannot be performed effectively. In order to tackle the challenges mentioned above, Zenitaka decided to build a system that could improve the safety of tunnel construction as well as reduce the amount of power consumed. In other words, this new system would facilitate a clear picture of which workers were working in each location at the mountain tunnel construction site, as well as which processes were being carried out at those respective locations at any given time. The system would maintain the safety of all workers while also carefully controlling the electrical equipment to reduce unnecessary power consumption. Having decided on the concept, our next concern was whether there existed any kind of robust hardware that would not break down at the construction work site, that could move freely in response to changes in the working environment, and that could accurately detect workers and vehicles using radio frequency identification (RFID). Given that this system would involve many components that were new to Zenitaka, we decided to enlist the cooperation of E.I.Sol Co., Ltd. ('E.I.Sol') as our joint development partner, as they had provided us with a highly practical proposal.
Learn more
© 2015-2024 IoT ONE Limited | Privacy Policy

Contact us

Let's talk!

* Required
* Required
* Required
* Invalid email address
By submitting this form, you agree that IoT ONE may contact you with insights and marketing messaging.
No thanks, I don't want to receive any marketing emails from IoT ONE.
Submit

Thank you for your message!
We will contact you soon.